by Leigh Ban
Obviously, Dana was joking with me, but I couldn’t stop myself from staring at her in disbelief. With long tight curls and an infectious smile, she was the eye-catching beauty. To show off her legs, she wore sneakers with a bright yellow dress that clung to her figure. She had a couple of rings on each hand, which seemed to be a signature look for her.
Inside a crowded soju bar off the main street of Sinchon, the area next to West Seoul University, I sat with Dana, her best friend Yumi, and two guys they knew from a campus community service program. One of them wore a baggy hooded sweatshirt and had a nose piercing while the other was dressed like he was going to church in an argyle sweater that was too snug around his protruding beer belly.
After knocking back a shot of soju, the guy with the piercing said, “Are we going to order more bottles or go somewhere else?”
The other guy replied, “How about we stay here and drink? Soju is cheap here.”
“Or how about the two of you stay and the rest of us leave?” Yumi laughed. “I want to go to Bubble Bomb.”
While both Yumi and Dana majored in economics, they were complete opposites in many ways. Yumi wore black exclusively and was fond of vampy lipsticks that contrasted with her skin. She initially came off as snarky and hard to read. However, the first night I went to Bubble Bomb, I was touched by Yumi as she slipped two small cans of hangover remedy drink into my hand. Yumi glanced over at Dana, who had become a sloppy drunk, and whispered that the cans were for Dana and me.
Half an hour later, all five of us arrived at Bubble Bomb. Although the guy in the argyle sweater had complained by saying we would be arriving earlier than anyone else, we got the last empty table. The playlist featured upbeat pop and hip-hop songs. We mixed our soju with energy drinks to create a soju bomb, essentially a low-budget version of a Jäger bomb; this was Bubble Bomb’s most popular menu item.
“So, Stella, what type of guys are you into?”
I turned to face the guy in the unflattering argyle sweater. As he gave me a tipsy smile, revealing a piece of popcorn kernel stuck between his teeth, I tried to remember what his name was. I didn’t mean to forget, but Yumi would probably mock him if she heard me ask. He was two years older than me and a year older than Yumi and Dana, so they called him “oppa,” the word for older brother used by women, instead of using his actual name. Personally, I couldn’t get used to the concept of referring to guys who were not related to me as “oppa.”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged.
“Oppa, you’re annoying her, can’t you tell?” Yumi said.
He wagged his finger at Yumi. “Shut up!”
“Are you two fighting?” Dana called out. “Don’t make Room 901 Kid uncomfortable. Be nice.”
For a moment I expected Yumi to be irritated. When she proceeded to laugh, I realized she was drunk.
“Dana told me you study political science. Can you guess who else majors in political science? Me! We should check our class schedules to see if we take any courses together, Stella.”
As the guy in the argyle sweater handed me his phone with his timetable on the screen, I hesitantly took out my phone.
He exclaimed, “Topics in Political Philosophy and Introduction to Commercial Law! We share two classes.”
I shifted in my seat. Frankly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to sit with him every week until the end of the semester.
“Commercial Law with Professor Lee? Yumi and I are taking that as well. Don’t forget about us!” Dana yelled out, grooving to the beat.
Leaning over the table, Dana gave him a high five. I’d given up trying to find out his name by then, as I assumed the professor would call out his name for attendance anyway. For the rest of the evening, the five of us experimented with the best ratio of soju to energy drink. Whenever Dana and Yumi heard their favorite songs, they pulled me toward the dance floor. Though I started out feeling self-conscious, the alcohol eventually loosened me up.
Later, while Dana and the guy with the pierced nose snuggled together, Yumi and I went to dance without her. Yumi put her hand on my shoulder and blurted out that she loved the vinyl skirt I was wearing. We were so giddy we skipped to our table.
The guy in the argyle sweater said, “Hey, Room 901 Kid! We should exchange numbers. You know, for class.”
Yumi stared at me as I took out my phone.
I smiled sheepishly. “Oppa, what’s your name? I mean, your full name.”
As Yumi saw his face fall, she cackled.
“Hongsik Ham.”
The beginning of my first official week at West Seoul University was a blur. As I dashed around campus, I struggled to remember the starting times for each lecture. With so much to adjust to, I was relieved to have signed up for the courses that were offered in English. The only exception was Latin Dance, which I selected following Dana’s recommendation. I had repeatedly told her I lacked the coordination required to dance with a partner, but she gave me a mischievous look and insisted I had nothing to worry about.
When I returned to my dorm on Thursday, Dana asked me if I wanted to go to a cocktail bar with her and Yumi that night. Although the only class I had the next day was Latin Dance at two o’clock, I declined. As much as I adored her, I enjoyed the peace and quiet while I sat alone in our dorm room. I spent the evening video-calling my parents, assuring them everything was going well, then went on to call my grandparents.
“Stella, you know you can come and stay with us anytime, right?”
“Of course, Grandma.”
“Contact me if there’s anything you need, love. Hmm, what else…”
“Tell Lala I miss her already!”
As Grandpa shouted out in the background, Grandma and I laughed.
“Okay, let us know when you have the time to come and see us. We can go to Café K again if you want. Kyungsook was so pleased to hear you like her café.”
After I finished my call with Grandma, I lay in bed and thought about the café. For some reason, I felt like it had been weeks or even months since I’d gone there, yet Phil’s face still lingered in my mind. As I pictured his smile, my heart fluttered.
I couldn’t stop myself from looking him up online. At first, I simply typed his name but realized there were way too many people with a similar given name. As I added the word “model,” I prayed that there were no other models called “Phil.” Without much difficulty, I found his social media page and, soon after, stumbled across his portfolio on an agency website.
His full name was Phil Oh. He was six foot two inches tall and recently turned twenty years old. So far, he had modeled for various Korean brands and walked at London and Paris Fashion Week last year. I was intrigued to see him listed as both a model and an actor. However, when I tried to search his filmography, I found nothing.
Chapter Three
Unlike any of my other classes, Latin Dance took place in Old College Hall at the back of the campus. After I attempted to follow the map from the university website, I ended up in a wooded area. The wild branches blocked my view of the buildings, and with pebbles scattered across the dirt, I couldn’t tell if there was a path leading to Old College Hall. As I walked past a picnic table covered in mildew, I thought about how isolated I was and shuddered.
“Excuse me, are you headed to Latin Dance by any chance?”
When I heard a masculine voice coming from nowhere, I jumped. Once I turned around, I sighed with relief as a tall, well-built guy approached me.
“I’m sorry if I scared you. I got lost and… Are you lost too?”
As he came closer, I noticed how handsome he was. He had amazing bone structure, particularly his chiseled jawline, and his shoulders looked impossibly broad in a navy coat with a light-blue shirt underneath. I gazed into his dark and serious eyes.
“Hi, I’m Taehyun Seo.” He offered me a handshake.
“My name is Stella, Stella Hart. Yeah, I’m really lost. I hope we’re not late to Latin Dance.”
“We’re late,” Taehyun said, looking
at his watch. “But don’t worry. I don’t think attendance will be taken today.”
Although the design of the watch was simple, I knew it was a Patek Philippe. Grandpa wore a similar one.
“How did you get here, Taehyun?”
“Well, I thought I was following the map—”
“From the university website?”
“Yeah, exactly. Did you look at it on your way here as well?”
I nodded while we walked. Together, we continued to search for a way out of the woods. He pushed the unruly branches out of the way for us.
“Hey, Stella, I think that’s the hall.” Taehyun pointed to a building covered in ivy branches.
“Should we run?”
“Good idea. We’re almost an hour late.”
We sprinted toward the entrance. However, when we went inside, we looked at each other in confusion. There was nobody around.
“Where’s the rest of our class? Surely we can’t be the only students taking Latin Dance.”
Taehyun chuckled as he replied, “You’re right, although that would be quite an experience. Do you think the other students went somewhere else with the professor?”
“Perhaps? Or maybe class ended early? What’s the time?”
“You think so? It’s around three right now. This class is meant to end at four o’clock,” Taehyun said, staring at his phone screen. “Hang on, my timetable says Latin Dance is from four to six. I guess we got confused.”
“What? Really? So we’re an hour early?”
“That seems to be the case. On the bright side, we’re definitely not late.”
As we laughed, I thanked him for guiding me out of the woods. Although Grandma told me West Seoul University had the largest campus in this crowded city, I hadn’t expected to get lost in a forest on my walk to class.
After Taehyun and I took off our coats and left them by the entrance, he pointed to the wooden benches cramped together at the other end of the hall.
“Do you want to go sit over there? I feel kind of weird standing here because of that huge mirror on the wall.”
“Sure,” I replied, peering at our reflection. I looked tiny next to his tall frame and square shoulders.
As I took each step, I felt his gaze.
“Are you a good dancer, Stella? You are, right? You’re so light-footed.”
“No way. I’m terribly uncoordinated. I should probably apologize in advance to whoever my dance partner will be. How about you? Do you have a lot of dance experience?”
“Not at all. This is my first time taking a dance class.”
“Oh, what made you want to take Latin Dance then?”
Taehyun said in a soft, low voice, “Well, I visited a couple of cities in South America during winter break, right after I finished my military service.” His eyes lit up. “I loved it there. Havana is such a beautiful city with breathtaking street performances. Although I wasn’t interested in any type of dance beforehand, the salsa dancers were utterly mesmerizing. Once I returned, I wanted to try out Latin dance, and this elective course seemed perfect. How about you, Stella? What brings you to Latin Dance?”
“My roommate recommended the class. I’m an exchange student from Illinois while she’s a regular third-year student, so she helps me out a lot.”
His eyes grew round. “Illinois? My brother’s girlfriend goes to law school in Chicago. Are you from Chicago?”
“No, I’m from Dounesville.”
“Dounesville? As in where Dounesville University is located?”
“You know Dounesville University? I’m a student there.”
“Yeah, I’m interested in American grad schools. What’s Dounesville like?”
“Dounesville is… the opposite of Seoul in many ways. No skyscrapers, no crowds on the streets, no crazy nightlife. I guess it’s idyllic yet secluded and kind of lonely. Growing up, I was the only half Korean at my school. Everybody else was white.”
I blushed, unsure of whether I had overshared. When I peered at his face, I was touched by his sympathetic expression.
“Taehyun, how about you? Have you been to America before?”
He replied with a wistful look in his eyes. “I lived in New York for three years while I was in elementary school. Since I was in Manhattan, I didn’t get to experience nature and small-town life, so I think there’s a lot to America I don’t know about. Still, going to New York was good for me. I met people from other cultures for the first time.”
As we sat on the bench and talked, all the stress I’d felt during my first week at West Seoul University vanished. I found out that he was in his last year studying Business Administration. At one point, Taehyun confessed that he didn’t enjoy his major and sat at the back of the class to read novels, whispering in my ear even though nobody else was around. I couldn’t help but fall for him.
A middle-aged woman with bright orange hair walked into the hall. She wore a bedazzled shirt with a snake-print skirt and a pair of ballroom shoes.
“Okay, everybody, I’m Sujin Hwang. You can call me Professor Hwang or Ms. Hwang. Can all of you turn to the person standing closest to you? No, no, not like that. Boys should be facing girls. Girls should be facing boys.”
Taehyun beamed at me as he rolled his shirt sleeves up to his elbows. Since the other students had just begun walking in, we were the only people at the far end of the hall.
“Everybody’s paired up? Perfect. Ladies and gents, the person you’re looking at will be your dance partner for this semester. Now, can you all take your shoes off and put them on the rack over there? If you have dance shoes, you should put those on. Otherwise, you can dance in your socks. It’s a lot easier to turn with your socks on. I don’t want to see bare feet.”
Aside from a lithe girl with her silky long hair in a ponytail, the other students seemed new to Latin Dance. Like me, they didn’t have any dance shoes to change into. Once the girl with the ponytail put on her sparkly gold T-bar heels, she checked herself out in the mirror. While Professor Hwang taught our class how to warm up one step at a time, the girl did her stretches differently, showing off her flexibility.
Next, Professor Hwang played a track on the stereo and announced that for the first part of the semester, we would be learning the cha-cha-cha. After demonstrating both the women’s and men’s parts, she taught us the beginning of the dance routine by having the girls stand up and follow what she did while the guys sat and watched, then vice versa. I felt self-conscious about how glaringly obvious my mistakes must have been because there were only six other girls dancing with me. I promised myself to download the music later and practice the routine alone in my dorm room.
Meanwhile, Professor Hwang praised Taehyun by pointing out that his steps were the most natural out of the guys. I peered at the large mirror covering one of the walls and noticed all the girls were staring at Taehyun as the guys practiced their part. For a moment, I wondered whether it was because of his looks or his dance movements.
“Okay, some of you need to practice a lot more, but you can do that on your own after class. Let’s try doing the routine in pairs.”
My heart skipped a beat as Taehyun reached out to hold my hand. When Professor Hwang played the track, my mind went blank. I glanced over at the girl in sparkly gold dance shoes, who was strutting confidently, and remembered the steps. Although I was even clumsier than when I’d danced on my own, Taehyun did his best to make sure we kept up with the rhythm. As we practiced the start of the routine, my hands became slippery with sweat. Once the music stopped, I hastily wiped my damp palms on my jeans, then linked our fingers again.
Professor Hwang walked around the hall to examine everybody’s routines and provide feedback.
“No, no, no!”
I heard her yell out at two of the students. While she didn’t seem angry, the students were anxious as she spent fifteen minutes picking out their mistakes and correcting every detail.
As soon as she came over to us, my muscles tensed. I tried not to sl
ip up, though I wasn’t totally successful. To my surprise, she simply smiled and nodded before going over to the next pair of students.
“Stella, you’re doing great,” Taehyun whispered in a husky voice.
My cheeks flushed.
“Sorry we’re late! We got lost on our way here!”
After Taehyun had gone to the nearest bathroom, which was apparently in another building, three people ran into the hall. As they started talking to Professor Hwang, I realized one of them was Hongsik.
“We were almost here when we got lost in a forest.”
“Yeah, we met each other while we were trying to find the way.”
When a couple of the students who came to class on time chimed in and questioned the accuracy of the map from the university website, Professor Hwang let out an exasperated sigh.
“Could somebody get their phone and show it to me?”
Hongsik handed his phone to her.
“How convenient.” Professor Hwang stared at the screen. “Everybody, the map from the university website appears to be out of date. At least when it comes to the area around the back of the university. Do not follow this map when you’re coming to Latin Dance from now on. To help those of you that struggled to get here today, I’ll post some directions on the online discussion board for Latin Dance. Thank you all for turning up today. Class dismissed!”
While Professor Hwang put on a pair of tortoise-shell sunglasses and gathered her belongings, students rushed toward the shoe rack. I stood in the middle of the hall and wondered when Taehyun would return from the bathroom. Had he gotten lost again? I decided to stay until he returned and tell him Professor Hwang was going to post the directions to the hall online.
Professor Hwang yelled out, “Okay, everybody, out! I have to lock this place up for the weekend.”
I went to grab my Gucci loafers, one of the purchases from my shopping spree with Grandma. Once I was back outside, Hongsik waddled over to me.
“Stella!”
